Nurses move step closer to industrial action over pay

Delegates at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) conference overwhelmingly passed a motion saying members should be balloted on industrial action if there are any attacks on their pay agreement.

They also voted massively in favour of a motion saying Mr Lansley’s reforms of the NHS will not benefit patient care.

It comes after the Health Secretary was forced to say “sorry” to nurses earlier this week over the way he has communicated his plans for the NHS.

Health minister Anne Milton infuriated nurses earlier in the week when she said an offer was still on the table for no compulsory redundancies in return for nurses accepting a two-year pay freeze when they move up pay bands in accordance with their experience.

The proposal, made by NHS Employers last year, was rejected by all major health unions including Unison, the British Medical Association and the RCN.

The RCN described the proposal as an “attack on hard-working nurses” and said NHS Employers had been unable to even guarantee that more than 100 trusts would stick to any agreement on no compulsory redundancies.

But Ms Milton told opting in to the pay freeze would mean no compulsory redundancies for nurses in pay bands one to six and “as few as possible for other staff”.

Speaking yesterday in favour of the motion for a possible ballot on strike action, nurse Tom Bolger, from Suffolk, said: “We’ve had enough of deception, of lies and bully boy tactics.”

He said industrial action did not have to mean all-out strike but could take the form of nurses not completing all “tick box” forms and finishing work on time.

The motion, which was passed 97 per cent in favour to three per cent against, said the RCN should ballot members on industrial action if there was any “imposition” of an incremental freeze or any other proposal which challenged nurses’ national pay agreement.

Some 438 nurses voted in favour, 14 against and eight abstained.

RCN chief executive Dr Peter Carter said the vote was “a symptom of nurses feeling that the Government may be listening but they are not hearing”.

The motion saying the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill would not best serve patients or the NHS was passed 98 per cent in favour to two per cent against.

Some 434 nurses voted in favour, with eight against and seven abstentions.

Proposing the motion, Linda Bailey, from London, said the Government’s reforms were about “dismantling the NHS”.

The conference also heard a suggestion that nurses should undergo an annual health and well-being “MoT”.

The physical and psychological assessment could take place alongside yearly appraisals. Nurses proposing the plan said it would help set a healthy example to patients.